Netflix are going to let you decide how TV shows should end

You, an adult, watch Netflix. You, as a child, read Goosebumps. This is true for everyone. Presumably, as you were in the midst of your Goosebumps odyssey, you stumbled across some Give Yourself Goosebumps books – you know, the ones that let you “choose your own adventure”, as it were.

If you’re unaware, Give Yourself Goosebumps involved your standard Goosebumps narrative (goblins, haunted theme parks, melting faces, etc.), only at certain points in the story, you could choose where you wanted the story to go. So, uh oh, you’ve stumbled into a spooky library and there’s a scary googly-eyed doll sitting there staring at you. What do you do?

To leave the room immediately and lock the door, turn to page 45.

To smash the flaming shit out of that creepy bastard’s stupid plastic face, go to page 50.

Page 45:Well done, libraries are for nerds.

Page 50: You have been arrested. It was a public library and a child’s toy.

It’s that kind of stuff, really. It was a lot of fun.

Well, Netflix are jumping on that admittedly stationary bandwagon, and bringing it to TV. Essentially, they’re looking at creating new shows with a number of pre-filmed plot strands, which are available to the viewer at the click of a button. So two people could watch the same show, but see it pan out differently, depending on whether they choose to have Walter White open a vape shop instead of cooking meth, or whatever.

You could play it safe and decide to let Walter White continue to be a teacher while slowly dying

A source told The Mail: “We’ll see how it plays out. It’s an experiment. We’ll see if it gets much success. For creators, it’s new territory.

“It is almost random – you could go through a story in incredibly weird ways. I can’t imagine what the story will be like but it’s highly fragmented.”

Netflix will be trialing it with kids’ shows first later this year, then if that works, they’ll roll it out with the adults and you can fully take control. Don’t get your hopes up though, the choices will only affect those on screen – there will be no option to choose things for yourself like “a girlfriend” or “a dinner that isn’t a ready-meal”.

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Gary Ogden

Shortlist writer and "the least woke person in the office", Gary Ogden, likes horror movies, Cheestrings, tapping his leg under the desk, "having a drink", hiding from responsibility, screaming into the mirror whenever he is alone, and assorted other things. Mainly the screaming thing though.
@garyblogden